Saturday, July 10, 2010

Are Email Newsletters the Blogs of the future?

I just saw this interesting post on Gigaom about how prominent bloggers are moving away from the medium and switching to subscription based email newsletters. Why do this? Because they feel that Twitter, Facebook, and other real-time social media applications are easier to use and require less of a time commitment. But is the blogosphere audience really turning a blind eye to blogs as these other applications rise in influence?

I guess this practice of starting email newsletters might be worth it if you're a prominent blogger who offers quality content and has a loyal fan base. If that's the case then maybe people would be willing to pay $1.99 a month to get an email newsletter with content. I personally would probably choose to follow someone else -for free.

Nevertheless, this idea of a paid email newsletter could be indicative of an emerging trend. There is a lot of talk about how to monetize social media content. Facebook is exploring options and so is Hulu, who also launched a subscription service recently. Who knows, if enough bloggers start shutting down their blogs in favor of subscription services, that could completely transform the landscape for better or for worse.

Imagine what that would mean from a PR perspective. Subscriptions might make for even greater niche audiences. Which means if you're pitching to a blogger with an email newsletter, only those who subscribe are going to receive the content. That means no passers-by will see a story that you've submitted. However, if people are paying to receive updates and content from a blogger, then that means they are probably actively engaged. This could make reaching influencers easier if they are all actively reading this content and sharing it with others.

Any thoughts? Would you ever consider subscribing to an email newsletter from a blogger?


1 comment:

Professor Pallavi Kumar said...

I guess it doesn't surprise me that a blogger would try and make their content more coveted especially if they have a large, well-established audience that would find value in paying for a newsletter. I guess it is no different than a $1.99 app in that sense. But we are a fickle bunch - as soon as we have to pay for content that was previously free than we tend to find other sources and lose loyalty. Look at Howard Stern and Sirius Satellite Radio - people move on and these bloggers risk losing the fan base that they worked so hard to build.